


Requiem

by LittleSammy



Category: Reign of Fire (2002)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2010-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-08 16:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSammy/pseuds/LittleSammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn, musing. Sort of Quinn/Van Zan - sort of not...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requiem

The day my mother died was also the day that I brought destruction upon the earth.

Of course I know that isn't really true. The voice of reason tells me that it would have happened anyway. That it wasn't my fault. That I simply happened to be there the moment the dragon stirred for the very first time in a million years.

By daylight, I know all this.

But there are the nights. Those nights when I can't sleep because I remember the fire, and the pain, and everything I have lost. That is the time when I can't help but hear another voice, somewhere in the back of my head, a voice that whispers it could have all gone differently. That it was me who had awakened him. And strangely, that voice sounds a little like Van Zan's.

On the outside, I grew up that day. Was a brave boy and tried to do what was right and what had to be done, because somebody had to and nobody else did. But while it looked like I took care of those who couldn't do it themselves, all I really did was hide. Hide, and pray, and wait until the world went back to how it was before. Because it was all a matter of time, you see, and the monsters wouldn't get me if I hid underneath my sheets and was very, very quiet.

Van Zan's eyes ripped me out of this. Bright, and cool, and arrogant, that's how I remember them. The eyes of a madman. Pig-headed American bastard who beat the spark of reality back into me. Who made me want to do something, anything. Who showed me that I could change. Something.

_In the failing light, they can't focus._

Maybe it's not just the dragons. Maybe the same goes for me. It may be the reason I come out here every few days and watch the sun go down while I let my thoughts unravel, go anywhere but the places that are too vivid, too disturbing... But why would I think about him, then?

Dammit. Even after all this time, there is still a gaping, Van Zan-sized hole in my chest, and I don't know how to fill it because I am not like him. I want things, and I need things, and I feel. And sometimes I even hate him for making me feel something else beside the anger I had grown accustomed to over the years.

It feels odd to miss someone who shared your life for the grand total of two days. There are moments when I wish I could have gotten to know him better. Most of the time, though, I am pretty sure that knowing him would have stripped away the tarnish of the wild-eyed dragon slayer and left behind only the madman.

There is still Alex. She is a good wife, and a good friend, and she is the one thing that keeps me here. But sometimes I cannot help but wonder.

It is a thought that always stays in the shadows, of course, only hinted at, careful not to move into the broad light, but it is there nonetheless, and it will stay with me for as long as I live. Because when I killed that dragon, I may have undone what I started some twenty years before. But I will never be able to undo Van Zan.


End file.
